The Resilient McNair Practitioner: Overcoming Burnout2019 McNair Promising Practices Institute

February 1, 20193:00PM

Introduction

Who I am:--McNair Director Since 2012--Work is highly personal (Proud TRIO SSS Alum) --Postsecondary Education, Communications, History--Teaching/Advising/Advocacy/Program Management

University of Minnesota/McNair Program Profile: --Large Urban Public Research One --Housed in College of Education—w/ TRIO UB and SSS--Celebrating 28 years of continuous funding --Serve coordinate and MN institutions with no McNair access

GOALS

--Begin a meaningful conversation about burnout prevention in the McNair professional community

--Provide resources to inform, inspire and remind that we are not alone in our work

Why a Conversation on Burnout? The McNair community has experienced SIGNIFICANT and SUSTAINED volatility. Including, but not limited to:

• Navigating extremely competitive grant process in a dysfunctional political environment • Slates released mere weeks/days before start of new grant cycle• Direct calls for program elimination based on blatantly false and misleading premises • PROSPER Act • Required to do more with less. Co-opted work. • Day-to-day stressors of high impact job in a helping profession • Factors such as institutional politics, HR, and other unique stressors (double spacing, APR

Fields 38, 39, 40 & 43)• McNair work at intersections of the academy---can feel isolating • Work constrained by legislation that has not been meaningfully updated for past two

decades • Many new McNair colleagues getting their “sea legs” • Macro implications to long-term success of McNair Programs

How do we reduce our chances of burning out and losing sight of McNair mission?

Presentation Material Adapted From:

Recognizing Burnout

Fully Engaged Burned Out

Energy Exhaustion

Involvement Cynicism

Efficacy Ineffectiveness

Burnout Creation vs. Burnout Prevention Burnout Creation Burnout Prevention

Work overload vs. Sustainable workload

Lack of control vs. Feelings of choice and control

Insufficient reward vs. Recognition and reward

Breakdown of community vs. A sense of community

Unfairness vs. Fairness, respect and justice

Significant value conflicts vs. Meaningful valued work

Lack of fit (incongruence) Between person and job vs. High job—person fit

Strategies for Overcoming Burnout Losing one’s Innocence about assertive need for self-care

Increasing intellectual excitement and decreasing boredom by reinventing one’s self

Minimizing ambiguous professional loss

Learning to set professional boundaries

Creating a Professional Greenhouse

Understanding the reality of pervasive early professional anxiety

Avoiding the grandiosity Impulse and relish the small victories---Think Long-Term

Return of the Elephant

Reflections and Resources

“One generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade.” (Chinese Proverb)

“One of the greatest threats to TRIO comes from within [….] complacency and compassion fatigue.”

(Dr. Arnold Mitchem, President Emeritus, COE)

The Resilient McNair Practitioner Resources:Google Form (Open Link to See & Share)

Discussion